May Day Scientifically Primed For Violence With Record-Breaking 81 Degree Heat

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Common folklore, perpetuated by Spike Lee's 1989 classic Do The Right Thing, posits that high temperatures make the likelihood of violence and riots go up. Turns out, it's not just folklore—multiple studies have reaffirmed the fact that higher temperatures really do get people's blood boiling.

Unfortunately for Seattle PD, this year's May Day lines up perfectly with what's being predicted as the hottest May Day in a decade, a blistering 81 degrees.

"Ambient Temperature and the Occurrence of Collective Violence" the 1979 Stanford psychologial study that has become one of the landmark papers on the link between heat and violence, deduced that the peak range for riots is, lo and behold, in "the range of 81°-85° F," making this Thursday scientifically one of the most fertile days of 2014 for the rampant smashy-smashy we've seen in the past. More recent studies also point to the 80 degree mark as the peak for violence, which starts to fall off from there the hotter it gets.

Looks like the Seattle weather Gods are trying to egg everyone on. Stay safe everybody—and maybe hand an ice-cold lemonade to anyone you see wearing all black this Thursday.